MOFCOM Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services Comments on the Import and Export of Service Trade in January-October 2018

Date：
2018-12-7

MOFCOM Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services Comments on the Import and Export of Service Trade in January-October 2018

On December 4, official from MOFCOM Department of Trade in Services introduced the import and deport of service trade in January-October 2018.

Since this year, China’s import and export of trade in services has kept rapid growth with its structure continuously optimized and the stable and upward trend further consolidated. China’s import and export of trade in services reached 4302.24 billion yuan, up 11.1% year on year. Among these, the export was 1421.18 billion yuan, up 14.3%, and the import was 2881.06 billion yuan, up 9.6%. The trade deficit was 1459.89 billion yuan. The major features were as follows:

In terms of the total import and export volume, the scale and growth rate of trade in services were stable and upward. The successively launched policies for the innovative development of trade in services have effectively strengthened economic vitality, improved development quality and strengthened the endogenous power of the development of trade in services. In January-October, the import and export of trade in services reached over 4.3 trillion yuan with the scale hitting record high and its growth rate reaching 11.1%.

In terms of import and export structure, the rapid growth of emerging services has effectively promoted the high-quality development of service trade. From January to October, the total import and export of emerging services was 1418.16 billion yuan, up 20.4%, 9.3 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate, 13.6 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the import and export of traditional services, driving the proportion of emerging services up by 2.6 percentage points to 33%. Among this, the export of emerging services was 741.5 billion yuan, up 25.8%, 22 percentage points higher than the growth rate of traditional services’ exports. The import was 676.66 billion yuan, up 15%, 7.2 percentage points higher than the growth rate of traditional service imports. However, in terms of scale, the import and export of traditional services still plays the dominant role, including 1752.18 billion yuan in tourism, 819.16 billion yuan in transportation, and 182.56 billion yuan in construction, totally accounting for 64%.

In terms of service export, the construction of “China Service” national brand has driven the rapid growth of high-end production service exports. In January-October, service export increased by 14.3% year on year, and the growth rate was 4.7 percentage points higher than that of import. Among this, the export of computer and information services, insurance services, R&D achievements transfer fees and consigned R&D and other high-end production services grew rapidly, with an increase of 66.7 %, 20.5% and 18.3% respectively.

In terms of service import, the accelerated upgrading of service consumption has pushed the import demand for high value-added services to expand. As the domestic supply-side structural reform continues to advance, and the pace of transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry has accelerated significantly. China's consumption of productive services is accelerating and the import demand for high value-added services continues to be released. In January-October, the import of intellectual property rights was 194.86 billion yuan, up 22.5%. The import of financial services was 10.88 billion yuan, up 22.1%. The import of computer and information services was 119.52 billion yuan, up 24.3%. The R&D achievements transfer fees and the import of consigned R&D was 36.86 billion yuan, increasing by 18.6%.

In terms of regional layout, the development of service trade areas is relatively concentrated, and the growth rate in the eastern region is the fastest. In January-October, the import and export of services in the eastern, western, central and northeast regions reached 3595.6 billion yuan, 290.62 billion yuan, 229.44 billion yuan and 152.5 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 84.2%, 6.8%, 5.4% and 3.6% respectively. Among this, the growth rate in the eastern region was the fastest, reaching 12.7%, which was 1.6 percentage points higher than the growth rate of national service import and export over the same period.